Police called to assist ambulance run

Firefighters and paramedics concerned after fight breaks out on Laurel Court.

Firefighters and paramedics concerned after fight breaks out on Laurel Court.

July 23, 2008|DAVE STEPHENS Tribune Staff Writer

SOUTH BEND -- The early morning call for an ambulance sounded routine: A woman had received cuts to her hand. But firefighters and paramedics who responded to the call at the Laurel Place apartment complex Tuesday soon found themselves in the middle of a fight. Police and fire officials don't know for sure what started the fight in the 1000 block of Laurel Court shortly after 1 a.m. Tuesday. But with a recent string of shootings involving firefighters and paramedics in cities across the country, paramedics who arrived on the scene were worried enough they called for police protection. Fire and ambulance crews were dispatched to the scene after receiving a call that a woman had been cut on the hand. According to Assistant Chief Steve Cox, who oversees the fire department's emergency medical services, a firetruck and an ambulance had just parked in front of the apartment building when several people came outside and began fighting in the yard. The fight, which apparently involved no weapons, was enough of a concern that police were called for assistance. Cox said department procedure is to leave any scene deemed dangerous to firefighter or paramedic safety. "It's basic protocol," said Cox, who was not at the scene but interviewed the firefighters involved. "If something's dangerous, we get back into the truck and leave." Cox said emergency crews were about to depart when the injured woman came out of the apartment building and approached paramedics. Crews were able to help the woman into the ambulance without incident and leave the area, Cox said. "The fight was going on in the front yard, but it wasn't involving any of our guys," Cox said. "Our guys were not directly threatened at all." Police reported the people involved in the fight had cleared the area by the time they arrived. No one was arrested. Cox said fire crews are concerned about any scene in which violence is a possibility -- and their training focuses on avoiding the types of situations that have recently made headlines. On Monday, a firefighter in a town near St. Louis was shot and killed while responding to the scene of a burning car. Two police officers also were wounded in the attack. Last week, two photographers in Indianapolis were shot while covering a fire at a vacant house. In June, a Chicago fire investigator was shot on the job. In May, an emergency medical technician was shot as he treated a gunshot victim in East St. Louis. Cox said stories like those are why firefighters are trained to assess a situation and call police if an area seems dangerous. "When we start out training, we teach them to go into every situation thinking the worse, and to lighten up from there," Cox said. Cox said calls in the middle of the night are a particular concern, but that the department has no plans to request police presence with emergency calls. "We don't enter a scene until we can determine that it's safe," Cox said. "If we can't, we'll back off until police arrive or until we get verification that the scene is secure." But as in the Tuesday morning incident, Cox said, it's not always easy to assess a situation before getting on scene. "We didn't know there was a fight, dispatchers didn't know there was a fight," Cox said. "It caught us by a surprise."